But why oh why can't you disable automatic date reading? Put something in settings with a checkbox that I, the user, can tell excel to F-off with that nonsense.
Is there anybody who can argue the 'for' case for having this on all the time without recourse?
Introducing checkboxes somewhere in the bowels of settings adds more ways for things to go wrong.
What is the default? Do the defaults differ across versions? How do you keep it consistent across computers and installations? What if you actually need the function ad hoc?
This reminds me of CSV export. I haven't used Windows for a decade but I remember that if you wanted to change how decimal numbers were exported you had to change the locale and reboot the computer. To change a setting in Excel. That is insane. Sprinkling checkbox patches isn't too far from this.
I just tried this out. I'm using office 2021 and when I first opened excel, this setting was there just like in the link and it seemed to work when I entered a few strings in. 'Fantastic!' I thought.
Then I closed it and thought of a few other date-like strings to try and this time the option had disappeared! Every date-looking string was instantly turned into date! I tried a few other times and this setting is gone. WTF is that about?
Have you opened an older file? Maybe it only works with files created with the feature. I’ve no idea why that would be the case, but it’s all I can think of.
Both times (and a few after that), it was accessing excel settings before opening any files or starting a new one. I've tried after opening files, same thing. The setting is just not there like it was the first time.
Is there anybody who can argue the 'for' case for having this on all the time without recourse?